There's A Big Mistake With Trump's Latest Tweet About His Approval Numbers
Ever tweet something and then really wish you hadn't? Us normal folks can just delete it and pretend it never happened. But when you're the president and tweet the wrong poll numbers out... well wiping it off the face of the Internet is a little harder. President Donald Trump's tweet about his approval numbers has a pretty awkward mistake. Whoops.
On Thursday, April 11 at 7:20 a.m. ET, Trump tweeted out a screenshot of a graphic from Lou Dobb Tonight on Fox Business Network from the previous night's episode, which apparently showed "Trump's soaring approval," with a 55 percent approval rating overall and a 58 percent approval rating when it comes to the economy. Except there's one little, — OK, pretty big, problem — those numbers are only half right. According to NBC News, the numbers were taken from the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service Battleground Poll, and while they did have Trump's approval rating regarding the economy right, at 58 percent, that 55 percent is actually his unfavorable rating, according to a tweet sent out by Mo Elleithee, director at Georgetown Institute of Politics.
His overall approval rating, Elleithee clarified, is actually 40 percent, while disapproval is 55 percent. The White House did not immediately respond to Elite Daily's request for further comment about the mistake.
In an email, a representative for Fox News referred Elite Daily to the network's on-air corrections. Following Trump's tweet, Blake Burman, a Fox Business Network reporter, issued an on-air apology the morning of April 11 stating that the poll "was not entirely accurate." He said,
It’s been a quite start to the day for President Trump, though he did send out a tweet this morning from the Lou Dobbs show last night on Fox Business. That tweet featured a poll that was not entirely accurate, which Fox Business would like to correct. According to a poll from Georgetown University, 58 percent of respondents approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That portion of the graphic was right. However, the graphic also showed that 55 percent of the respondents approve of the president, that number is not correct. The 55 percent number was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.
The network doubled down on the apology and later on Thursday, Fox News White House correspondent Kevin Corke issued another apology on behalf of the network, addressing "a typo in the graphic" but making no mention of the fact that on his Wednesday night episode, Dobb also talked about the president's 55 percent approval rating — in words. He said,
The president’s overall approval is now 55 percent—let’s hear that, 55 percent — and approval rating for president’s handling of the economy, a robust 58 percent. Fifty-five percent is pretty robust too, don’t you think?
Following the correction from Elleithee and the two apologies from Fox News reporters, as of Thursday afternoon, Trump has yet to take down the tweet.
Folks, if there's one thing to learn from this whole ordeal, it's trust nothing and check everything — especially if you're planning to tweet it out to the whole Internet.
